Bayer Leverkusen is the third of the five German teams to lose the first game of this Champions League group stage. The votes for the 0:1 against FC Brugge.
Leverkusen had nothing to gain in Belgium. The Bundesliga side lost 1-0 to what was supposedly the weakest opponent in the group (with Atlético and Porto), FC Bruges.
The “great effort” that Gerardo Seoane emphasized after the game was not rewarded. Also because of a tiptoe offside by Patrik Schick, who could have made it 1-1 in the meantime.
“We are disappointed, this defeat hurts,” Seoane drew a sobering conclusion after the game. The Werkself had missed the chance to provide an important liberation in a new competition. After all, things are still not going well in the Bundesliga, while you have already been eliminated from the DFB Cup.
“The team allowed very little today and was still punished very severely. The great effort was not rewarded,” said the coach, who apparently saw a performance that could give courage and confidence for the coming weeks.
Seoane continued: “You can’t pick the team up so soon after the game, everyone is very disappointed. The team has shown a different face in the last few weeks.” A problem that he recognized again: “Both sixteen-meter spaces are currently lacking clarity and consistency. It absolutely has to get better.”
Jonathan Tah saw a game that sums up the current effort, which is mostly accompanied by a lack of yield and some bad luck. “You can lie down like that. I think it’s just not enough how we started in the first half. Sure, we definitely did better in the second half, created chances, played a lot more intensively, but that we have to stop from the first second,” said the defender.
Then a team would also play the first half “with a different feeling”, which would mean fewer annoying goals conceded. You have to “start much more aggressively, much more intensively” if you want to be successful at the Champions League level.
“Bruges showed us how aggressive they were,” Tah continued. The team was aware of the strengths of the hosts, but “didn’t counteract them with enough determination”.
“It’s not that easy,” explained Robert Andrich when asked how to deal with regular setbacks. “But I think the positive thing – if you can see something positive – is that it picks up again relatively quickly,” said the midfielder.
Andrich also saw enough reasons to believe in an imminent improvement in performance and results, across all competitions. The 27-year-old argued: “We never let ourselves down, we’re still trying to play forward, trying to create chances. I think there were a few chances today, too.”
At the moment there is too often a lack of “the last punch”. An aspect that Seoane also focused on in his analysis.
This article was originally published on 90min.com/de as “Everyone is very disappointed”: Comments on the Leverkusen defeat in Bruges.
